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diet

I woke up on time today, but the rest of the day has been a complete failure. After playing guitar for an hour in the morning. I decided that I would have a snooze. I tried sleeping for 2 hours, at peace with myself for my productive music session. Sleep didn’t really come because of my noisy sister.

My alarm went off at 12:45PM, telling me that I needed to get ready to play the drums. I planned on playing, but then I tried to go back to sleep again, saying to myself, “I don’t have THAT much to do today. I can just play drums later.” Again, sleep didn’t come because of my noisy sister. Really fucking noisy.

I got off the couch at 1:30 and promptly got an energy drink. Planning to practice right away. I just procrastinated, even more, vacillating between the thought of drumming and the thought of studying for my exam.

I finally sat down in front of the computer at 2:10, but I went on Facebook. Then, I turned on Self-Control and decided that I should learn about self-discipline.

I basically learned that I need to meditate, exercise, and sleep well. This is the fucking advice for EVERYTHING! WTF?

About meditating. . .

I tried it a few times during college and then again with my various therapists afterward. I didn’t hate it and I didn’t like it either. All it did was rejuvenate me, and I didn’t like the process. Tim Ferriss, blogger, author, investor, podcaster and amy idol, meditates every day and so do the top-performers he interviews. I’m having doubt that I can realistically make this a part of my daily routine. I know that I can do it if . . .

BRB, I need to feed the cat and scoop his litter. . .

Okay.

I need to find some specific time during the day I can meditate. In the mornings would be good. . . I can meditate for 10 minutes from 9:40 to 9:50. Perfect. I just set alarms before I wr0te that last thing.

About exercise . . .

I’ve been lifting, then walking 4 miles per day, 5 days per week. I was 5 miles initially but I change it to 4 miles so I would have time to write blog posts. I want to change it to 6 days per week, Sunday through Friday. I know I can definitely do this no problem. I just have to make sure that I don’t make excuses. Today, I didn’t go because I wanted to study instead. But, according to information I got online, exercise helps your brain and it helps you become more disciplined. So, I’m just hurting myself if I don’t exercise.

About sleeping well . . .

I’ve been having trouble getting to sleep for the past 2 weeks. At 10:30, an alarm goes off that reminds me to get ready for bed. I’m usually on Facebook at this time and I’m usually making a post about the good things that happened during the day. . . or I’m just wasting time. I brushing my teeth is more like pulling teeth. I take 2 minutes and I hate it. I delay it as much as possible. This makes me late getting to bed sometimes. This is when I really need self-discipline. If I get to bed late, I won’t get good sleep, and that sucks away your willpower. Vicious cycle . . . I guess I can make my teeth-brushing less painful by watching a video while I brush. Yeah that’s what I’ll do. Aside from this, I need to stop my caffeine intake at about 3:30 everyday.

I’m losing weight fast on the Slow-Carb Diet. I was 210lbs at the beginning of the year and now I’m 197. I’m having this strange feeling like I’ve done enough work and that I can eat whatever I want now. But I know my work isn’t done until I’m 175 lbs. I only have about 20 more to lose! I’m feeling like I am a fat person at heart and that it’s strange for me to keep losing weight. But I know this isn’t true. I’ve only been fat since 2014, and I gained all of my weight that year. I’m actually a skinny person and I’m fit, too. I’m getting this weird feeling like I’m not that excited about losing the weight that I’ve lost already. It seems to be just a routine thing for me now. But I know I will feel a lot better when I look better. I will be more confident about my appearance and I will be able to have the skinny punk look that I want. Fat punks just don’t make sense.

I’m getting really distracted when studying. I find myself on Facebook and Instagram and random sites on the Internet. Today, I spent two hours of study time researching ways to prevent gum recession. I did come to some valuable insights, but I could’ve come to those same insights on a day when I didn’t need to study. From now on, I plan to save all my Internet bingeing for Friday nights and Saturdays, days when I skip studying already.

Speaking of cramping my study time, I feel distracted because I haven’t had nicotine for the past 24 hours. I keep thinking about having nicotine. I stopped on purpose, I’m doing it because nicotine causes your gums to recede and I’m having a major problem with that. I also feel distracted because I just switched from tea and energy drinks to 5-Hour Energy. Okay, fine -I’ve only just switched in the past two hours. But I’m committed to switching permanently because tea and energy drinks are very acidic, which is bad for my gums. We’ll see how long I last, I hope it’s a long time.

Overall, I think because of these recent changes in my intake of stimulants, I feel wispier, less anxious, and distracted. I still want a cigarette, but not that badly.

I just switched 0mg of nicotine in my vape and I feel really deprived. I don’t think I’m going to switch back to 3mg though. I’m really quite proud that I’ve lasted these past 3 hours. (3 hours!? that’s it!?) I normally puff away nonstop and I now that I’m not, I realize how addicted to nicotine I am. I think it’s only going to be a couple of days before I’m used to it. The goal is to quit using my vape permanently. I don’t want nicotine to control my life like it is right now. I quit smoking once before in Idaho. It took a couple of weeks but I eventually quit for two years, except for a few months when I was with a band and we all smoked a few cigarettes per week.

I think that I’m going to do it for good this time, maybe. I’m hopeful. I’m already feeling okay on 0mg of nicotine right now. I do crave smoking whenever I’m lost in thought or when I’m facing a mental task like thinking about what to write. I’m at a loss right now and I just vaped.

Quitting is hard, quitting anything is hard. habits that involve stopping an activity are harder than habits the require starting a new activity. In order to stop doing something, you need to replace it with something else. Habits occur in loops that start with a craving, goes to action, then ends with a reward. In order to stop a bad habit, you need the replace the action with something else that will give you the same reward. . . at least that’s the advice I got from the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I can think of habit that I formed over a year ago without using this method. I started eating well. I just decided that I was going to

I started eating well. I just decided that I was going to eat well and follow the Slow-Carb diet. I could eat as much as I wanted, I just needed to avoid white carbs, sugar, fruit, and dairy. I ate a lot at the beginning and I really ate a lot of calories. Now, I’m only eating 800 calories 5 days a week! I just started doing this last week, but I’ve been doing really well. I’m going to keep it going until I lose 15 more pounds. I lost 15 pounds since last year and I want to lose 15 more.

Welcome to another edition of Marcus Brain Dumps. Today, I’ll be sharing with you my remorse over cheating on my diet.

Yesterday, I ate a steak when I was technically supposed to be fasting. I normally fast on Sunday until night time when I eat beans. When the day started, I knew I was going to make an exception at dinner because it was Christmas, I was going to allow myself to eat anything I wanted as long as it was part of our family’s Christmas celebration. I lasted until about 12pm and ate a steak. I felt guilty about it, and I want to say that it wasn’t that bad of a mistake but it was. You see, I’m trying to form the new habit of not cheating so much on my diet. These first few days are crucial. I cheated today as well when I ate a burger, so that’s not good. I need to keep myself accountable because no one else really cares that much that I lose weight, not as much as I do.

I think I cheated today because it felt weird not to cheat with my brother around. He isn’t strict about his diet and I felt like I would be acting strange if I didn’t cheat. I should’ve let him know that I was trying not to cheat anymore and that I’m becoming more strict with my diet. I think he would be the kind of person that I could talk to about things like this. But then again, I feel like would cheat anyway around him even if I told him. I have to watch out for this when I see him.